The term fundamentalist has come to be a pejorative term. However, it need not be. Fundamentalism is a synonym for orthodoxy. A religious fundamentalist is one who is faithful to the tenets of his religion.
It is common today to profess or practice a religion in ways that are not orthodox. There are, for example, nominal Christians, nominal Muslims, or nominal Jews, etc. They take on the label of the religion, but not the beliefs or practices. They may even attend worship services, but in their own mind reject many of the core beliefs.
To get an understanding of Christianity and Islam, we consider irrelevant what Sally and Omar may improvise about their respective religions. Anybody can make up their own religion, for example, by taking from the Bible whatever they want and tearing out the pages they don't want. But this is disingenuous, hypocritical, eternally dangerous—and is probably heretical to whichever religion one claims allegiance. On what basis does one claim to know more about the religion than the founders of the religion themselves?
We are interested in exploring here what the source documents say concerning these two major world religions, Christianity and Islam. That is, we will explore and compare the Bible and the Quran (plus the written traditions of Islam).
As we compare orthodox (that is fundamental) Christianity and orthodox (fundamental) Islam, we hope to speak to a variety of audiences, including:
Truth is discernible. At least, what is not true is discernible. Applying rules of logic, one can show that a truth-claim is not true by identifying arbitrariness or inconsistency in the claim.
We offer detailed references from the Bible, the Quran, and the Bukhari Hadiths so that the interested reader can check the sources himself. We invite you to do so.
Hadiths (or ahadith, either of which is plural for hadith) are written compilations ("traditions" or "reports") of the sayings and actions of Muhammad. Muhammad's example and authority are prominent in Islam. The hadiths, along with the Quran, are meant to govern every aspect of life, including civil law. There are several collections of hadiths, but the one compiled by Bukhari (or "Al-Bukhari" or "Sahih Bukhari"), who lived 200 years after Muhammad, is considered very important, especially by Sunni Muslims. We will reference Bukhari primarily in our article, but will also reference the hadiths collected by "Sahih Muslim," who was a student of Bukhari.
Along with the reliable hadiths, a further source of accepted knowledge about Muhammad comes from the Sira (life) of the Prophet, a controversial biography of Muhammad composed by one of Islam's great scholars, Muhammad bin Ishaq, in the eighth century AD (roughly 100- 150 years after Muhammad). The Sira together with the hadiths make up the Sunnah—"the way of the Prophet." It is through Muhammad's personal teachings and actions—the Sunnah—that Muslims discern what is a good and holy life. Details about the Prophet—how he lived, what he did, his non-Quranic utterances, his personal habits—are indispensable knowledge for any faithful Muslim. The Quran, Sira, and Hadith together make up the Islamic Trilogy and form the perfect pattern of all Islamic behavior.
Some background for our non-Muslim readers might be helpful. There are several Muslim sects. Sunni Muslims represent about 85% of the world's Muslim population. The second largest sect is Shiite. There is disagreement among the various sects on some issues, not unlike theological disagreements among Christian denominations.
Note: One thing that is confusing to English speaking people is that the English spelling of Arabic words is not standardized! For example, Moslem is a variant spelling for Muslim. Quran is also spelled Qur'an or Koran.
The Quran is divided into 114 chapters called Suras (also spelled Surahs). A designation of, for example, 10:1 means Sura 10, verse 1.
The Bukhari Hadiths are divided into nine volumes, then various books, then hadiths by number. The numbering system is governed by the volumes, not the books. So, a designation of 5:416 means volume 5, hadith number 416. Bukhari is usually presented online in book order, so you might have to hunt for a few seconds to get the correct volume. It might help to use the following table. Here are the nine volumes, with the book number at which the volume begins being in parentheses: 1 (1), 2 (13), 3 (27), 4 (51), 5 (57), 6 (60), 7 (62), 8 (73), 9 (83). The Muslim Hadiths are numbered consecutively, uninterrupted for the entire collection. Here are some sources for Islamic books online:
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (Here are 3 versions of the Quran side-by-side)
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (Here are the hadiths.)
Search Truth
Sacred Texts
In the Name of Allah (This is a non-Muslim version of the Quran with explanation of passages)
One source for the Bible is bible.gospelcom.net. One source for understanding the Muslim writings (from a Christian perspective) is www.answering-islam.org.
It is common today to profess or practice a religion in ways that are not orthodox. There are, for example, nominal Christians, nominal Muslims, or nominal Jews, etc. They take on the label of the religion, but not the beliefs or practices. They may even attend worship services, but in their own mind reject many of the core beliefs.
To get an understanding of Christianity and Islam, we consider irrelevant what Sally and Omar may improvise about their respective religions. Anybody can make up their own religion, for example, by taking from the Bible whatever they want and tearing out the pages they don't want. But this is disingenuous, hypocritical, eternally dangerous—and is probably heretical to whichever religion one claims allegiance. On what basis does one claim to know more about the religion than the founders of the religion themselves?
We are interested in exploring here what the source documents say concerning these two major world religions, Christianity and Islam. That is, we will explore and compare the Bible and the Quran (plus the written traditions of Islam).
As we compare orthodox (that is fundamental) Christianity and orthodox (fundamental) Islam, we hope to speak to a variety of audiences, including:
- Those people who sincerely want to learn more about these two religions. Most Christians know very little about Islam (the Muslim religion). Likewise, most Muslims have mistaken ideas about Christianity. Indeed, many people of both faiths do not even know enough about their own religion to validate its truth claims.
- We also are addressing those people who are under the false belief that all religions are equally valid, or that all religions lead to God. We will clearly show that Christianity and Islam are irreconcilable.
Truth is discernible. At least, what is not true is discernible. Applying rules of logic, one can show that a truth-claim is not true by identifying arbitrariness or inconsistency in the claim.
We offer detailed references from the Bible, the Quran, and the Bukhari Hadiths so that the interested reader can check the sources himself. We invite you to do so.
Hadiths (or ahadith, either of which is plural for hadith) are written compilations ("traditions" or "reports") of the sayings and actions of Muhammad. Muhammad's example and authority are prominent in Islam. The hadiths, along with the Quran, are meant to govern every aspect of life, including civil law. There are several collections of hadiths, but the one compiled by Bukhari (or "Al-Bukhari" or "Sahih Bukhari"), who lived 200 years after Muhammad, is considered very important, especially by Sunni Muslims. We will reference Bukhari primarily in our article, but will also reference the hadiths collected by "Sahih Muslim," who was a student of Bukhari.
Along with the reliable hadiths, a further source of accepted knowledge about Muhammad comes from the Sira (life) of the Prophet, a controversial biography of Muhammad composed by one of Islam's great scholars, Muhammad bin Ishaq, in the eighth century AD (roughly 100- 150 years after Muhammad). The Sira together with the hadiths make up the Sunnah—"the way of the Prophet." It is through Muhammad's personal teachings and actions—the Sunnah—that Muslims discern what is a good and holy life. Details about the Prophet—how he lived, what he did, his non-Quranic utterances, his personal habits—are indispensable knowledge for any faithful Muslim. The Quran, Sira, and Hadith together make up the Islamic Trilogy and form the perfect pattern of all Islamic behavior.
Some background for our non-Muslim readers might be helpful. There are several Muslim sects. Sunni Muslims represent about 85% of the world's Muslim population. The second largest sect is Shiite. There is disagreement among the various sects on some issues, not unlike theological disagreements among Christian denominations.
Note: One thing that is confusing to English speaking people is that the English spelling of Arabic words is not standardized! For example, Moslem is a variant spelling for Muslim. Quran is also spelled Qur'an or Koran.
The Quran is divided into 114 chapters called Suras (also spelled Surahs). A designation of, for example, 10:1 means Sura 10, verse 1.
The Bukhari Hadiths are divided into nine volumes, then various books, then hadiths by number. The numbering system is governed by the volumes, not the books. So, a designation of 5:416 means volume 5, hadith number 416. Bukhari is usually presented online in book order, so you might have to hunt for a few seconds to get the correct volume. It might help to use the following table. Here are the nine volumes, with the book number at which the volume begins being in parentheses: 1 (1), 2 (13), 3 (27), 4 (51), 5 (57), 6 (60), 7 (62), 8 (73), 9 (83). The Muslim Hadiths are numbered consecutively, uninterrupted for the entire collection. Here are some sources for Islamic books online:
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (Here are 3 versions of the Quran side-by-side)
Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (Here are the hadiths.)
Search Truth
Sacred Texts
In the Name of Allah (This is a non-Muslim version of the Quran with explanation of passages)
One source for the Bible is bible.gospelcom.net. One source for understanding the Muslim writings (from a Christian perspective) is www.answering-islam.org.
0 comments:
Post a Comment